Donnery says Neuhaus wears 'many masks'

Gittel Evangelist

Wednesday

Oct 30, 2013 at 2:00 AM

GOSHEN — Like a wolf in sheep's clothing, Orange County executive candidate Roxanne Donnery said, her opponent's idea to spin off the county's nursing home to a separate agency betrays his true intention to privatize it.

GOSHEN — Like a wolf in sheep's clothing, Orange County executive candidate Roxanne Donnery said, her opponent's idea to spin off the county's nursing home to a separate agency betrays his true intention to privatize it.

Donnery and her supporters in the CSEA — the union that represents the nursing home's workers — held a news conference Tuesday evening to speak out against Republican Steve Neuhaus' interest in transferring control of Valley View Center for Nursing Care and Rehabilitation to a local development corporation.

Valley View has been at the center of a legislative fight over whether to keep the home county-run or sell it to a private company. Last week, a Legislature committee overwhelmingly rejected County Executive Edward Diana's budget proposal to fund Valley View for the first four months of 2014, voting instead for an amendment to pay the home's bills for the whole year.

Rejecting Neuhaus' recent idea for an LDC to take over the home, Donnery riffed on the upcoming Halloween holiday and spoke of the "many masks" worn by Neuhaus and others, including Legislators Leigh Benton and Patrick Berardinelli; their real intention, she said, is to sell Valley View.

While true that Benton and Berardinelli have maintained support for selling the nursing home, both voted along with the legislative majority last week to fund Valley View for a full year.

"Make no mistake: This is a trick," Donnery said.

Moreover, say Donnery and the labor leaders who support her, Ulster County transferred its nursing home, Golden Hill, to an LDC for precisely the purpose of selling it; the same thing happened in Rockland County.

Donnery points out that Neuhaus received a $1,000 campaign donation from Harris Beach, the law firm that formed the LDCs that took over both those counties' nursing homes.